Leadership – How to build (and keep) an all-star team
Find talent
Tap into social networks, start a blog to engage and talent pool. Head hunt; if you know where the best talent is, leverage tools such as Linked In, Seek Profiles and other online tools to find and approach potential talent directly. Network with relevant contacts and ask for referrals. Engage the experts; if you are using a specialist recruitment company, ensure that you are working with a person that has the networks and relationships to introduce the right talent to your business and is best placed to represent your company.
Attract the best talent
To attract the best talent you need to have an attractive offering. Be socially responsible, make your career webpage attractive, have an attractive employee referral program, support personal and professional growth, offer quality of life perks, provide extra incentive and earning options.
Foster a culture that your people will not want to leave
Companies that build the most successful teams are the ones that have demonstrated the greatest commitment to their people. They are the ones that have created the greatest sense of belonging. And they are the ones that have done the most in-house to develop their people. That commitment has come through in the personality of the organisations. You only have to look as far as some of the most successful companies in the world like Virgin, Google and Facebook for evidence.
Maximise your teams potential
The key to motivating your team is to inspire, if you are motivated yourself you are better placed to motivate others. Motivation needs to be focused on clear, specific, realistic and achievable goals. Seeing progress towards those goals gives a sense of achievement and helps revive motivation.
Everyone has different motivations – you just need to find what they are. They may well be different from yours and will give you useful insights into what drives people. Ask your people what they want from their job, and for the business as a whole. Also, what do they want for themselves in life overall?
•A sense of belonging motivates – the smaller the group to which someone belongs, the stronger the loyalty, motivation and effort.
•Participation motivates – people feel more motivated when they feel their involvement in a project is important and valued. Often we exclude our greatest assets – the people around us – from decisions in which they could be usefully included.
•Challenges motivate and people often rise to the occasion. However, it can also be demotivating if they are too difficult, or conversely, too easy to achieve.
•Motivation needs recognition and reward – even if it’s something as simple as a thank you.
“Train your people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” Richard Branson
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